Context

While writing my posts for this blog, it became increasingly clear that it would be beneficial to start with the basics of Ukrainian folk dress. Folk dresses are highly contextual cultural items, and how Ukrainians approach our dress is going to inherently be different than how other cultures interact with theirs. Points of misunderstanding and confusion naturally came up when I first explained the design of my dress to my Estonian supervisors, and I want to address these questions upfront. Those already familiar with the Ukrainian folk dress may well find this information to be redundant with their own knowledge, in which case skipping past is certainly acceptable. But for others who are newer to the Ukrainian cultural context, this page may provide some necessary explanations to keep in mind going forward.

This page will address a number of questions that may crop up. I have adopted a Question & Answer format, hopefully for the ease of interaction with this broad topic. Briefly, I will spend my space here explaining why I chose to craft a folk dress, what “authenticity” means in the Ukrainian context, the time period that it is based on, the necessity of personalization in Ukrainian textile craft, and the independence that I was allowed in my work.

Why a Folk Dress?

To be upfront, I am a staunch believer that craft_ing_ – the skill and act of embroidering, etc. – is a significant carrier of Ukrainian identity. Time and time again, I have heard from Ukrainians that our textiles are so valuable because our foremothers made them. Our ancestors developed and honed their techniques, dedicated time to crafting their textiles, and made them with the best intentions. It is the care and effort that our ancestors put into their crafting that make the resulting items so significant. Their non-crafter descendants may look upon these items and understand that the effort taken and achieved is a marker of our cultural talent. And for their crafter descendants, it is our continued skill and practice of crafting that bind the generations together. My foremothers embroidered to give beauty and happiness to the world around them, and I continue this act today, centuries later. Simply put, for a lot of Ukrainian crafters, our identity is not found so much in historical patterns or forms, as in continuing to do the same acts of crafting as our ancestors.

Prior to crafting my dress, I had already amassed a lot of knowledge about Ukrainian embroidery – its techniques, how it’s used, how to design it for my region, etc. I have been wanting to make my own Sniatyn-based vyshyvanka for a few years now, and at this point, I’m confident that I’m capable of doing it on my own. But if I maintain here that the actual act of craft_ing_ is the most significant part here, why am I making a folk dress specifically?

There are a few different reasons why I have been wanting to craft this for so long. A more surface-level reason is because I have an academic background in Ukrainian history. I’ve taken multiple courses on Ukrainian history and culture. Both my BA and History MA theses were rooted in my knowledge of Ukrainian cultural history. And after being around it for so long, I knew I was poised well enough to understand how the folk dress changed throughout time and why. An additional reason is my own interest in historical restoration / reconstruction. I adore historical material culture: I fix Walkmans in my spare time; I sew on a hand-crank sewing machine (you can read about Bonnie on my Tools & Materials page!), etc. So, when it comes to my crafting, I think it’s pretty natural that I would want to try my hand at the older forms of Ukrainian culture.

But more importantly, I chose the folk dress to try and mend the intergenerational trauma that I inherited. As I’ve discussed before, there was a lot of pain and shame in my family over being Ukrainian after World War 2. I can learn our history and I can find archival records, but these just form narratives that I myself cannot contribute to nor tangibly mend. Crafting – creating my own dress – was a way to act on that narrative myself. I could go back to that point where trauma blocked my family from even acknowledging our Ukrainian roots, then fill in that missing gap of time by making my own early 20th-century folk dress. I didn’t just want to acknowledge our roots; I wanted to find a way to restore them by reviving our heritage via a path that was already near and dear to my family (textiles). I wanted a way to actively participate in my Ukrainian identity and to truly appreciate this heritage for myself. Crafting a folk dress, for me, has been the most effective and significant way to continue restoring and rebuilding my Ukrainian heritage and identity.

I must press here, though, that this is my journey as a Ukrainian embroiderer. I chose to embroider the historical patterns, as many others do. But a lot of other Ukrainian embroiderers prefer modern patterns instead. Again, our patterns are not what make us Ukrainian embroiderers. Patterns can contribute, certainly, but they are not the foundation. For a large portion of Ukrainian embroiderers, it is their dedication, skill, and intention for the craft that define them as embroiderers. For most of us, it is the continuous thread of crafters going back centuries that pulls us into this larger community and defines our Ukrainian identity. Our foremothers crafted, our friends craft, and so we craft, and carrying on this memory and legacy is a part of what makes us Ukrainian. It is truly the intangible heritage (skill, associated beliefs, etc.) and the value that we put into our craft that make the act so important to Ukrainian identity. To say that a Ukrainian embroiderer must embroider historical patterns, for example, would be a disrespectful charge and completely inaccurate to the living Ukrainian culture. Today, I am crafting a folk dress, but tomorrow, should I switch back to modern patterns, I will not suddenly lose my title of “Ukrainian crafter.” I encourage my readers from other cultural backgrounds to please keep in mind, throughout this entire section, that it is the act of crafting that is so significant to Ukrainian identity.

Authenticity & Ukrainian Folk Dress

This acceptance of modern patterns in the crafting tradition may already be raising some questions for the international reader. Ukrainian crafters today have a different approach to their counterparts elsewhere, certainly. While some cultures (Norwegian, etc.) may find it more useful to define their folk clothing according to set standards, this is not the case in the Ukrainian context. This might be concerning for the international crafter, but it is a simple matter of cultural difference, as I will explain here.

Ukrainian textile crafters do not have set standards regarding what their dresses/etc. should look like. The industrialization of certain items, like the vyshyvanka, has brought a certain level of standardization to machine-made ones, but these standardized items are not nearly as valued as the handmade, personalized ones that I am discussing on my blog. Ukrainian crafters are not expected to standardize in any way. This does not mean that Ukrainian heritage is not being transmitted properly, that it is undervalued today, or that it cannot be sustained in the future. Ukrainian crafters have always and still value a good measure of independence and creativity in their work. In fact, this is a large part of our intangible culture, as diversity and personalization in Ukrainian craft are highly treasured. To impose restrictions on the output of Ukrainian crafters would only undermine, undervalue, and diminish our intangible cultural heritage.

Not only is standardization discouraged, but change in the craft is encouraged. Over a century ago, famed Ukrainian writer Olena Pchilka expressed that novelty patterns may be taken up in embroidery, just as long as the old are not forgotten. Considering today’s wide range of Ukrainian embroidery, from historical reconstructions to modern interpretations, I would say that Pchilka’s wishes have been followed by Ukrainian crafters. Our crafters value historical patterns, but they also know the importance of creation. Moreover, I would argue that this is an advantage for Ukrainian crafters because it has long given them the freedom to adapt and react to Russian colonization as well as globalization. Under these terms, the crafter who has the liberty to adapt and compete with outside influences will be the most effective at keeping the craft alive. They will be able to adapt to tenuous circumstances, such as the Soviet-era erosion of the Ukrainian cottage industry, as well as appeal to future generations who have been influenced by the West. Adaptation of our historical craft is key to its future survival.

Lastly, Ukraine places emphasis on the leadership of its crafters in this matter. There is a lot of encouragement for Ukrainian crafters to sustain traditions as well as to bring innovation to their fields. The Handicraft Chamber of Ukraine includes both traditional craft and innovation under its umbrella, and it works to consider the best way forward for crafters in Ukraine today. Simply said, Ukrainian crafters are more interested in ensuring that all craftspeople, from a wide variety of fields, are able to access the resources and infrastructure they need to support their crafts in today’s world. So, those expecting regulations akin to those in Norway to be established in Ukraine may call off their expectations now; this type of system would be undesirable and even detrimental to Ukrainian crafters. We should keep the wisdom of established crafters in mind when considering what is best for the situation of Ukrainian crafts today.

So, how can we define Ukrainian folk dress then?

From everything I have learned and experienced, I loosely define the Ukrainian folk dress as such: a set of clothing that is designed and handcrafted by a Ukrainian, using regional dresses from the late 19th and 20th centuries as a guide, while still adhering to the intangible ritual of self-expression. Historical reproduction is not a requirement here.

How can we ascertain “authenticity” for the folk dress?

I don’t really care to be complicated with this. I actually do trust other crafters to value their craft and traditions. So, I really only have one standard for ascertaining whether a folk dress is “authentically” Ukrainian: a Ukrainian folk dress is “authentic” when it’s made by a knowledgeable Ukrainian. Ukrainian tradition varies so widely, and each crafter is unique in their work, so it feels like an overreach to say much else. I will also note here that it is region and person that determine the folk dress in the Ukrainian context. This is why I focus so much on Sniatyn on this blog.

Time Period

Another concern that may be brought up about the Ukrainian folk dress is the time period. There are other cultures where the folk dress changed from one time period to the next. Muhu embroidery, for example, underwent some changes around the turn of the century and can be split into multiple time periods. Readers who come from cultures with these types of changes may then pose questions like: What time period am I using? Why am I choosing this time period? Am I being careful not to mix time periods? While these types of questions are valid for other cultural contexts, they are pretty irrelevant for the Ukrainian context. This is because Ukrainian textile crafters only have one time period to refer back to: the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is a pretty big reason why my focus has been on my folk dress being Sniatyn-based, without much consideration of the time period.

But why do we only have the one era? 

It’s time to bring out the dryest Ukrainian ethnographical article I have ever found about the development of the Ukrainian folk costume. We begin with 2 reminders from the author:

1. The Ukrainian folk costume has deep roots, going back to Kyivan Rus.

2. At every stage of development, the folk costume has been affected by intercultural exchange.

Several regions have preserved the most ancient surviving features of the folk dress, as they coincide with the former territories of Kyivan Rus. These include the Kyiv region, Chernihiv-Siver region, Pereyaslav-Khmelnych region, Pokuttia, Bukovyna, Polissia, etc.

Sniatyn is located at the border of Pokuttia and Bukovyna. Sniatyn has also been impacted by intercultural exchange over the centuries, including with Poles, Romanians, Jews, Germans, and even Armenians. Sniatyn folk clothing, like with the other listed regions, holds a lot of elements of the ancient folk costume (colors, placement of ornamentation, etc.), while also bearing centuries of influence from other cultures as well as from the transition to the current capitalist system. Ukrainian folk costume has achieved its uniqueness and spiritual / cultural significance because of its use of various materials, the refinement of its most foundational constructions, the abundance of types / techniques / compositions of decoration, and the overarching unity of different technical and artistic techniques. In simpler terms: our folk costumes are unique because of their diversity and adaptation to different influences, from ancient Kyivan Rus to our modern neighbors.

How do we know this ancient history? 

Our earliest sources of the Ukrainian folk costume include significant amounts of iconographic, chronicle, archeological, and archival material. Former researchers (historians, folklorists, ethnographers, artists, etc.) also left a good amount of material to reference.

A lot of the earliest information comes from ancient local records and travel records, which at times briefly mentioned folk costume. These writings can be combined with other evidence, such as archeological evidence, in order to draw conclusions about the general history of Ukrainian dress.

So, then we have specific data about different time periods?

Well, no. As to the aforementioned materials that we do have from earlier times, well… There are descriptions and illustrations of Ukrainian folk dress from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but they’re not great. Their documents are generalized and insufficiently documented, only covered certain regions (mostly those in central Ukraine), and didn’t bother to label the exact villages.

In the beginning of the 19th century, the Kyiv region was lucky enough to gain some ethnographic illustrations, which noted the colors, types of clothing, and specific regions different costumes originated from. Unfortunately for Kyiv, these drawings were insufficiently detailed to be able to actually recreate the folk dress of this era. (Obviously, this doesn’t help me in the slightest)

Around the mid-19th century, researchers were mostly focused on the overtly spiritual customs of the Ukrainian folk (think: rites, oral poems, etc.). Folk costume was largely ignored until the late 19th century, when we suddenly received more data from researchers. Now, this situation was better because, at this point, ethnographers knew that you actually had to document things like the region a dress is from and what its components are exactly. This is when we really start to get more detailed information in print. Comprehensive works on Ukrainian folk dress started being produced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is also the time period when folk dresses held in the Sniatyn ethnographic exhibit were collected. And it is, of course, unfortunate that this sudden interest also happened at the same time as the rise of capitalism, meaning that the folk costume would soon lose its commonplace popularity.

What does this mean exactly?

It means that the greatest amount of usable material that we have about the Ukrainian folk costume (such as Sniatyn’s) comes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is when documentation and collection started in earnest.

The oldest garments I have personally seen come from the late 19th century. I’ve seen several that span the 20th century. The construction of folk dress has decreased considerably, but here is what I can say: the embroidery patterns used in the late 19th century, the early 20th century, and the late 20th century are nearly indistinguishable. If I put aside all the markers of age (holes in the linen, different qualities of thread, etc.) and just focused on the design of the embroidery, I would not be able to tell apart the various years. The same patterns are used, rearranged, and personalized to suit the wearer over and over and over. That tells me about the person wearing the embroidery, not the time period.

By the late 19th century in Sniatyn, we had already developed our main embroidery techniques and patterns, which have consistently coexisted at the same time since then. It’s these basic patterns that are still in circulation for our regional folk dresses today. Simply put, when someone constructs a full dress today, there is only one blanket time period to really choose from as the foundation; we do not differentiate.

What I’m saying here is that it’s the region and the person that determine the embroidery. There’s no specific time period to be chosen from because we only have one time period to pull from. So, I’m not worried about mixing up time periods here.

But how “historically accurate” are the materials?

Readers who are already acquainted with my page on the Opynka will undoubtedly note that the materials used for today’s folk dress are not the same as they were yesteryear. Astute readers may ask: If the embroidery patterns have not changed much, then why is it okay for the fabrics to change? Isn’t it concerning that the materials have changed?

I think this depends on the perspective. Of course, it’s concerning that the Sniatyn weaving tradition is extinct. But for the construction of the folk dress and carrying on the memory of the opynka, emphasis cannot be laid solely on the materials used.

But if this is still a concern to some readers, then I remind the reader that Sniatyn has not had a local weaver in a very long time. I also remind the reader that the death of our weaving tradition is due to a variety of factors: industrialization, modernization, and severe Soviet restrictions against the Ukrainian cottage industry. If the turn of the century didn’t kill off our weaving traditions, then the Soviets would have pulled the final trigger. We cannot forget about the systemic and consistent colonization and oppression / destruction of Ukrainian culture by Russians that continues to this day. The simple reality is that our cultural heritage (like weaving in Sniatyn) is sometimes lost and too difficult to immediately (or ever) resurrect.

Luckily, most Ukrainian folk dress is willing to give way to change when deemed appropriate. We no longer have any local weavers to make our opynka? Okay, we’ll just have to improvise as best we can to still meet the aesthetic and silhouette. This often means coopting different modern styles that best match the color, silhouette, and texture of the original fabric. Plain skirts, for example, have long been a popular alternative when a weaver cannot be found.

Why not use a nearby region? A few have! There are definitely cases wherein people have turned to Bukovynian skirts as an alternative. I chose not to, but this is an option.

Why not hire a weaver? That depends! It would have to be a Ukrainian weaver, first off. If I contracted an Estonian/etc. weaver, it would not get me any closer to “authenticity” than the store-bought fabric I used for my opynka. Hiring a Ukrainian weaver is also quite expensive, and I’m not wealthy! To expect the utmost historical accuracy in this situation is, frankly, unrealistic. If I can’t afford to commission a weaver, then there’s definitely the question of whether the average Ukrainian could afford to do so. This is likely an option for a limited number of people, whereas adaptations and alternatives would be much more accessible. But you can reference the Opynka page for more information at this point. The bottom line here is that we must be open to adaptation if we want people today to continue making and wearing folk dress.

Frankly, if we weren’t willing to adapt to cultural loss and push forward – if we took the death of our weaving tradition as the complete loss of our folk dress – I don’t think we’d have a regional folk dress anymore. Between a less strict adherence to the historical dress and a complete loss… I’m choosing the former.

Okay, so what did we learn?

1. Due to historical factors, Ukrainians looking to craft their own folk dress will most likely have only one time period to reference: late 19th – early 20th centuries. This is definitely the case of Sniatyn, where the same types of folk embroidery patterns have been in use for the past 2 centuries. The folk dress that I craft today is as close as I can get to the one that would have been worn by my family before WW2.

2. It’s unrealistic to expect us to adhere completely to that time period because the conditions have changed. Simply put, complete historical accuracy is near impossible to achieve today, so we must be willing to adapt to modern circumstances for the wellbeing of the whole folk dress.

Personalization of Folk Dress

Beyond the time period, an additional point of potential misunderstanding is the personalization of the folk dress. When reading through my Design and other pages, readers may notice that I make changes to the original patterns that I encountered in Sniatyn. Changes to folk textiles may be unwelcome in other cultural contexts, but this is not the case for the Ukrainian folk dress. Creative adaptations to the original patterns are encouraged, even required. However, since there are some expectations today about what Ukrainian embroidery patterns should look like and signify, I wanted to explain upfront the realities of our patterns and how they should be designed.

Did I follow the symbolism of embroidery?

Today, a lot of misinformation exists about the patterns that are embroidered and written on pysanky in Ukraine. Various websites claim to know what each little symbol and color in the patterns means and how to read them. For example, some claim that diamonds symbolize the unity of the sun and earth, prosperity, etc. A whole language is constructed in these posts. These types of posts set people up to believe that Ukrainian embroidery patterns must contain secret messages, such as their demographic information (whether someone is married, etc.). Suddenly, external stress is placed on Ukrainian embroiderers to design patterns that align with this supposed language or to project these secret meanings onto their embroidery patterns.

However, this secret language doesn’t actually exist. These websites often have issues: they don’t cite credible sources, don’t specify which region the information comes from, don’t list when and where their information comes from, etc. The best sources are careful not to project unconfirmed symbolism onto embroidery patterns. We cannot truly know whether a lot of these symbols ever meant anything. Perhaps the symbolism existed, but only for a couple of people or for one region. Perhaps some male ethnologist in the late 19th century misunderstood or made up information about the symbolism to fill in some theory, without really conversing with the female crafters (as is so common in history). Or perhaps it did exist, but we simply don’t have credible sources for the majority of it today. While we can vaguely say that some of these symbols are tied to femininity in the Ukrainian context, it becomes very uncertain from these. They are projecting their own desires for meaning onto embroidery, perhaps to make embroidery seem more important according to their own standards.

But in any case, the “reconstructed” language that so many of today’s sources project onto Ukrainian embroidery should not be trusted for the historical context. If contemporary embroiderers like these meanings and want to use them, then that is their choice. But we should be careful not to project unconfirmed symbolism onto historical embroidery. We should not force meaning onto embroidery that might have meant something else or not had any hidden symbolism in the first place. If a source tries to tell you about some rules of codification for Ukrainian embroidery, then you should look upon it with skepticism – which region are these rules for? When were these rules first written down? Is there any other supporting evidence for these rules? If there’s no supporting evidence, then you’ve run into a fake reconstruction.

Beyond these sources simply being misinformation, they also push this idea that symbolism is what is important in Ukrainian embroidery. I have not found any evidence to confirm this to the extreme extent that many websites online claim. As I have explained before, Ukrainians typically value the dedication, skill, and intention put into the embroidery above all. In other words, we do not need a whole new, reconstructed language to prove that embroidery is important in Ukrainian culture. It is folk art, and it is important already on its own.

So, no, if you’re looking for some stringent rules of codification that contain all my demographic information, then you will not find it here. I will not be making up some rules or drawing generalizations to fabricate these rules. I am basing my embroidery as much as possible on the historical garments, and projecting any extraneous symbolism on them feels rather disrespectful to the work of the original crafters. I will discuss some of the symbolism that can be confirmed on my Design page, but for the most part, there are no stringent rules of codification to follow here.

Okay, but surely there are some rules for embroidery?

There are definitely some general guidelines that one may draw based on historical garments in terms of the colors and patterns used. As explained above, however, projecting symbolism (such as symbols for demographic information) on embroidery without evidence will not be happening here. My embroidery is based on what I could observe with my own eyes in Sniatyn.

Very little in the way of demographic information is contained in Sniatyn embroidery patterns. Sniatyn doesn’t have strict rules or meanings. Each region is different and has different values, and the Sniatyn region celebrates the diversity of our patterns and the beauty of our embroidery. We recognize that diversity enriches Ukrainian cultural heritage. Some do try to push these narratives of symbolism onto the embroidery anyway. For example, I have seen the assumption before that heavy red sleeves were meant only for unmarried girls. This is a nice theory, but it is disproven quickly. There is a lot of evidence to say that older and elderly women also wear red sleeves. Surely, elderly women, who are normally the strictest folk dress wearers, would not wear red if it were only for young girls.

When it comes to adults, I have never seen any evidence to suggest that there are rules for when one should wear red, black, red/black, whitework, or colorful floral patterns. In fact, here are the only 3 rules for patterns in Sniatyn that I feel comfortable affirming:

1. Heavily embroidered sleeves indicate wealth, though even the less privileged women often had heavily embroidered sleeves at least for their wedding.

2. Women’s shirts must have shoulder insets, while men’s shirts must have embroidery on the collar and cuffs.

3. A superstition: when an elderly woman embroiders something for a child, they embroider in red so as not to spread age/disease/etc. to the child. (source)

There are so many more complex customs when it comes to intangible heritage (and we’ll touch on this in the Design and Vyshyvanka pages). But if someone is looking just for the rules and meanings behind the patterns, then this is it. So, did I follow the Sniatyn rules of codification?

• Is my amount of embroidery allowed? My sleeve is not full; it’s the insets and cuffs. Outside of the intangible customs that must be considered, I wonder if this matters as much. I am certainly wealthy in relation to my 19th-century peasant ancestors, but I am not wealthy by today’s standards. So, I think this is a bit of a moot point. I do not plan to get married anytime soon; my intention was more on practicing the intangible customs with patterns from Sniatyn. And as the crafter on a limited time budget, I’m not going to say I failed here. So, I would say that focusing on the shoulder insets and cuffs alone is well within my rights.

• Is my embroidery in the correct place? Yes. It is. I do, in fact, meet the bare minimum for women’s embroidery: I have my shoulder insets.

• Am I an elderly person embroidering for a child? No. No, I am not. As an adult embroidering for myself, I have no reason to not choose what patterns I want.

Did I follow Sniatyn’s rules for embroidery? Yes, I’d say I did follow them. I’m sure some people will be disappointed to not see a bunch of rules and regulations, but this is the confirmed reality. The only other consideration is that a Ukrainian embroider will ideally embroider patterns from their region – and I have! All of the patterns I have used in my designs come from Sniatyn.

I know some sources really like the idea that one’s entire life story is tied into embroidery, but this is a very big idea to try and project onto every region. I’m trying to follow the actual rules and intangible customs (most importantly, the ritual of self-expression) for Sniatyn, so I’m not going to project these new meanings or generalizations onto my embroidering predecessors. I have followed the rules that have been documented and that I have truly seen for myself. I assure the reader that, as the crafter, I have researched and done what is best for my folk dress. I value Sniatyn’s heritage and truly desire to follow it in my embroidery.

Am I actually allowed to personalize embroidery?

While rules of symbolism are very iffy, what is certain is that Ukrainian folk dress is meant to be personalized for the wearer. A good rule of thumb to remember is as follows:

A Ukrainian crafter who handmakes their items will typically not create the exact same thing twice.

 A few months ago, I went to a pop-up shop with a friend of mine to see the silyanky they were selling (you can find out more about this on the Silyanka page). My friend and I looked at all the silyanky they had very carefully. Recently, I asked him: “Do you remember any 2 silyanky ever being exactly the same?” He thought about it, and then, with some incredulity, he said: “No, nothing was ever exactly the same. There was always something different. Like, there were a couple of necklaces that used the exact same pattern, but one would use white and another would use like an off-white. They were all different somehow.”

Unless they are explicitly crafting historical reproductions, Ukrainian crafters generally do not make the same item twice. Something will be changed somehow – maybe the colors are flipped, the pattern is narrowed, the spacing is widened, etc. The goal is to not make the same thing twice, but to experiment and create. Even when looking at archival photos of Sniatyn embroidery, it’s evident that no two vyshyvanky were ever the exact same. People like to personalize their possessions. They like to have their own designs that set them apart from their neighbors. Ukrainians are no different. Ukrainian embroiderers in the 19th century were not interested in the standardization of embroidery, nor are hand-embroiderers interested in it today. Every item is designed with unique intentions for the wearer and the context in which it will be worn.

So, not only can I personalize my embroidery, but it would be a faux pas for me to not personalize my designs. For example, I have flipped one of the patterns on my shoulder inset from the original red to black. This is a very common practice that has been documented on other vyshyvanky. By making this change, I am making sure that my final vyshyvanka does not look like someone else’s but is instead my own vyshyvanka. If I didn’t personalize my embroidery and change it from the original patterns, then this would not be my folk dress – it would be a historical reproduction of someone else’s shirt.

Why did I personalize my embroidery?

Sniatyn’s intangible heritage compels me to personalize my embroidery. In a lot of regions of Ukraine, embroiderers follow the ritual of self-expression when they design their patterns. Traditionally, this has been a very intense process. Women would spend time thinking about their designs and even visit church to pray and meditate on their patterns. Their patterns had to be unique to the wearer and context (weddings, festivals, etc.), so a lot of thought was put into these designs to match the embroidery with its intention. This work would result in embroidery that was imbued with the best of intentions for its wearer and the wearer’s future. The patterns would express the best wishes from the embroiderer.

While Sniatyn embroidery does not really reveal demographic information, what it does convey are intentions and protections for the future. Our embroidery is meant to protect wearers from bad luck, evil spirits, unfortunate fates, etc. and to manifest the best wishes and happiness for the future. Since the embroidery was tailored to a specific wearer, different patterns of protection and fortune would be designed for wearers, thus reinforcing the differentiation of patterns explained above. Personalization for the wearer then becomes part of this so as to guarantee individual protection for the wedding / festival / etc.

So, when I designed my embroidery, I followed this ritual of self-expression to the best of my ability. I did not just arrange my patterns carelessly, but instead took a lot of time to reflect on what I wanted for my embroidery and how to reflect myself most effectively. My final pattern is a testament to how I wish to express and protect myself through Sniatyn’s historical patterns. The patterns are the tools that I use to let my personality and circumstances show through my embroidery, and by doing so, I follow the ritual of self-expression. When I make these changes, like embroidering part of my shoulder inset in black, I am following Sniatyn’s intangible cultural heritage. My Design page contains more detailed information on each of my choices for my embroidery and how my personalization process follows historical precedent. But it was important for me to note here that the intangible heritage of my folk dress demands this personalization of my embroidery.

Independence in Crafting

A last concern that some readers may have and that I will address here is the independence I have had while designing and crafting my folk dress. While some stricter cultures may require their folk crafters to undergo special training before making their own dress, this practice isn’t really relevant in my case. First and foremost, I am crafting my folk dress for myself (a member of the folk); I never claim to be a master here. Secondly, most Ukrainian embroiderers, both historically and today, learned their craft from their family and friends, just like how I learned to embroider from my mother. Skill transmission within the family does not diminish ability but instead demonstrates how important embroidery is to Ukrainian heritage. Third, there are no requirements in Ukrainian culture to limit who can craft a folk dress. Many Ukrainians without formal training embroider their own vyshyvanky, and that’s great! That’s how the skill is maintained in Ukraine! So, I would say that my dress is not suffering from my doing this without training outside of my own family.

Hopefully that covers a lot of the initial concerns that some readers may have had, but I will cover a bit more here just in case there are further questions.

Did I seek guidance from the Sniatyn community?

There’s already a lot of information about what I was doing during my fieldwork in Western Ukraine elsewhere. But I’ll give my most focused answer: I sought out guidance while in Sniatyn.

Now, mind you, there is no master embroiderer for Sniatyn anymore. If there had been, I would have tried to arrange a meeting. But to the best of my knowledge, Sniatyn has already lost its last master embroiderer. Yes, I asked multiple people; nothing turned up. So, the next person we can turn to is Ivanna Stef’yuk, curator of the ethnographic exhibit at the M. Cheremshyna Literary Museum in Sniatyn. This is where our historic textile collections are held, and she is very well-versed in this matter. When I visited the museum, she was the one who gave me the tour. She showed me (literally) all of the textiles in their collection and answered my questions about the embroidery. I also got to physically see the historic dresses up close, which is the best guidance you’re going to get for the historic folk dress.

If I needed any further information about the patterns, I could have asked Stef’yuk over Messenger. And if I was absolutely concerned about my embroidery technique, I could have reached out to my own mom, who taught me how to embroider. Needless to say, my mom taught me well, and neither of us were worried.

So, very shortly, yes, of course I have received guidance from my community on how to design and craft my folk dress.

Was supervision required to design my folk dress properly?

I’m going to answer this upfront. Strict rules and supervision go against the definition of the folk dress as well as the historical intangible traditions associated with embroidery, particularly the self-expression aspect.

Yes, of course you can teach people how to embroider/etc. My mom taught me how to embroider when I was young. In Ukraine, your family or local school teaches you how to embroider. And at the folk-art institutional level, they teach you more advanced techniques and how to integrate the older folk dress into modern design. Should you decide to create your own folk dress, then the local museum and ethnographic books are readily available. Frankly, if you’re an adult and already an embroiderer (and I’ve been doing both of these for several years now!), no one’s going to come supervise your embroidery for a folk costume. For modernized designs? Sure. But for a folk dress, once my research was done, I would be expected to go work independently.

One reason for this, of course, is that you’re supposed to personalize your own folk dress. In most Ukrainian contexts, you never wear what someone else has worn. I only see this standardization with dance troupes / choirs and with the tourist vyshyvanky. If you handmake your own vyshyvanka / silyanka / etc. you differentiate and add yourself to the design. Beyond the foundational patterns and understanding, further supervision could very well be a hindrance. The beauty of folk embroidery is that, ultimately, we experiment and create, as we see with master embroiderers like Vera Roik. Supervision can get one so far with technique, but at some point, I shall have to leave the nest and create for myself. And after over a decade of embroidering, it is time.

To be honest, I do reach out to other Ukrainians at times to clarify general viewpoints towards folk art. I’ve done this with the weaver I met in Kosiv, with a silyanka maker I met in Poland, with a pysanka writer here in Estonia, with embroiderers (both Ukrainian national and diaspora) that I met in Indiana, etc. etc. These conversations always come with the same caveat at one point or another in some form: since I’m the one researching, crafting, and adding value to the folk clothing for Sniatyn, then I am an expert on Sniatyn embroidery and folk dress. It’s my voice that matters within my own field.

So, no, supervision beyond what I had already sought out was not a requirement for my folk dress. I went into this prepared and capable of making my own Ukrainian folk dress.

Final Words

To clarify every aspect of Ukrainian embroidery and debunk every misconception is, perhaps, impossible. Ukrainian folk dress is heavily embedded in its historical and regional contexts, which are further complicated by the ritual of self-expression that exists for our embroidery patterns. It is difficult to tackle every difference that exists between Ukrainian and other cultural systems. Misunderstandings may still follow this project, but I have tried to make a start here to define the Ukrainian folk dress, explain its history, and identify what the Ukrainian context means for my Sniatyn-based dress. I can only hope that the stricter reader has an open mind to the idea that Ukraine has its own history and cultural viewpoint to follow. And to trust that its crafters do everything they can to keep textile crafts alive in the modern world, even under the duress that Ukraine continues to face. Ukrainian folk dress is diverse and showcases some of our best talent, and I am proud of the beauty that Ukrainian embroiderers of yesteryear and today have created. May my own dress be one more unique addition to Ukrainian culture.